10 FBI whistleblowers – who warned of ‘political weaponization’ and faced retaliation from Biden admin –  reach settlements with DOJ 

Ten FBI whistleblowers punished by the Biden administration for reporting instances of “political weaponization” within the bureau will receive lump sum payments for damages as part of settlement agreements made with the Justice Department, officials announced Tuesday. 

“These 10 whistleblowers’ brave actions were met with intense bureaucratic blowback that caused severe financial and emotional hardship,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement announcing the settlements. “Their lives were upended for years, but I never stopped fighting until things were made right.”

“I appreciate Attorney General [Pam] Bondi, Deputy Attorney General [Todd] Blanche, Director [Kash] Patel and Deputy Director [Dan] Bongino’s unyielding efforts to prioritize accountability and bring closure to these whistleblowers’ cases.”

Under the Biden administration, the whistleblowers were wrongly subjected to demotions, security clearance revocation and indefinite unpaid administrative leave – collectively amounting to “over 12 years’ worth of inappropriate suspension time,” according to Grassley’s office. 

The 10 whistleblowers were represented by legal nonprofit Empower Oversight, which detailed the “reprisal” and “improper targeting” they faced from Biden’s FBI in a March 5 letter to the bureau’s general counsel expressing a desire to “amicably resolve and remedy the harms the FBI has inflicted on our clients.” 

The whistleblowers who reached settlements include:

FBI Special Agent Stephen Friend

Friend was suspended indefinitely without pay and had his security clearance pulled after he objected to a SWAT team being used to arrest a January 6 riot defendant on a misdemeanor charge. 

The Florida-based agent was sent home on the day of the operation – but recorded as having gone AWOL – after he warned of the risk to public safety and FBI personnel that the operation posed, noting that the subject being arrested had previously been cooperative with the bureau. 

FBI Special Agent Garret O’Boyle

O’Boyle was working at the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group in Virginia when he was accused of leaking case information related to an investigation involving Project Veritas to Project Veritas and improperly accessing FBI files. 

He was indefinitely suspended without pay and his security clearance was suspended. 

However, it was determined that O’Boyle “simply provided information about Project Veritas to another FBI employee and had only accessed FBI files as part of protected whistleblowing to Congress beginning in 2021,” according to Empower Oversight. 

Despite this information, O’Boyle’s clearance was subsequently revoked based on an additional claim that he mishandled classified information when he shipped work materials to Virginia from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Wichita, Kan., where he previously worked. 

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Zachery Schoffstall

Idaho-based SSA Schoffstall disclosed DOJ “misconduct” related to an investigation of members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front. 

Schoffstall warned that the probe into Patriot Front appeared politically motivated.

Aware of exculpatory information, Schoffstall declined to attest to a search warrant affidavit against Patriot Front or “assign an agent who was not aware” of the information to sign the document, despite pressure from “FBI executives.” 

Schoffstall was removed from his position, temporarily reassigned to West Virginia and proposed for removal from the FBI for not signing the affidavit. 

Monica Shillingburg

The FBI employee disclosed concerns of “gross mismanagement” and “gross waste of funds,” as well as a potentially “illegal” change in how the bureau’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) appeals were being processed.

Shillingburg was reassigned, had her responsibilities substantially reduced and was not allowed to telework after she expressed her concerns that the change to gun background check appeals would “increase the backlog” and increase the “likelihood of an improper gun sale” – disclosures that were “proven correct.” 

FBI Special Agent Michael Zummer

The New Orleans Division agent reported prosecutorial misconduct related to a sweetheart plea deal given to a district attorney charged with sex crimes. 

Zummer was denied permission from the FBI to report conflicts of interest between the assistant US attorneys tasked with prosecuting the district attorney and the DA’s defense lawyer to the court.

The conflicts “resulted in a lenient plea agreement where the DA was allowed to plead guilty to harassing a witness with a three-year maximum sentence when DOJ had authorized charging him with RICO and several other charges related to his sexual bribery and obstruction of justice,” according to Empower Oversight. “Also, the vast majority of the DA’s sexual abuse was deleted from the factual basis, effectively concealing his sexual abuse from the public.” 

Zummer’s security clearance was suspended and revoked when he reported the conflicts anyway. 

Several of the whistleblowers who secured settlements have remained anonymous. 

“For each of these cases where whistleblowers finally received at least some measure of justice for the retaliation they faced just for telling the truth about wrongdoing, there are many more who still need a remedy,” Empower Oversight Founder Jason Foster and President Tristan Leavitt wrote in a letter to Grassley. 

“[T]here are more who still have no remedy and no justice. The work to combat weaponization and whistleblower retaliation is far from over,” they added. 

Empower Oversight noted that each settlement agreement differed slightly, but “none required any resignations as a condition of the agreement” and “all include lump sum payments for damages.” 

Several involved the full restoration of back pay and benefits and three – the cases involving O’Boyle, Friend and Schoffstall – required the FBI to return the employees to duty.